48 Until End of Kickstarter… Plus New Art For “James – Journey of Existence”

My Kickstarter for “James – Journey of Existence” (http://kck.st/19wTNSh) has only 25 backers so close to the end, which is a little embarrassing, when the beginning had so much promise. On the other hand, the new IndieDB page for “James – Journey of Existence” (http://www.indiedb.com/games/james-journey-of-existence) already has 4 followers after about 24 hours of being up, so it seems an easy and safe simulation of how a Kickstarter would play, given the growth in community rises at almost the same rate.

There were several things wrong with the Kickstarter campaign. One major one was the current quality of the game itself: the environments were bland, the animations were crude, and the character designs were lacking. Art is in the eye of the beholder and some have truly loved the game’s style so far, but I can’t argue with the masses. And here’s my first step in fixing that: new character designs for James!

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“James – Journey of Existence” Demo Exclusive to Kickstarter Backers

My Kickstarter for hand-drawn 3D adventure indie game “James – Journey of Existence” (http://kck.st/19wTNSh) got a couple pledges this week, one of which nearly doubled the pledge count (not difficult, given how low it was a few days ago). Promising.

From the beginning of this Kickstarter, I promised that backers would receive an exclusive demo before the end of the Kickstarter campaign. There were a few reasons behind this: it was a very nice incentive for the $1 tier, and it was like a last-minute demo that might convince backers to increase their pledges a bit (or remove their pledges completely, if they so felt that way). And in the likelihood that the Kickstarter campaign fails, backers would still get something as a sign of thanks for their early support.

After a couple stressful weeks actually making the extra content for the demo, I can say it is completed, and the demo will be made available today to Kickstarter backers.

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Kickstarter Rewards Updated (or Removed)

The Kickstarter for “James – Journey of Existence” is picking up a couple backers, which is reassuring given that it isn’t even on the “Ending Soon” projects page yet for Video Games. Anyhow, some backers might notice that the description for the project was shortened a little, and more importantly, the rewards were updated. Or rather, some of the rewards were removed completely.

A lesson I learned from this campaign: when putting a new game on Kickstarter, people probably don’t care about your game yet. So when you offer physical rewards such as documentaries, art books, or soundtracks, very few people would actually be interested. It can even hurt the campaign, as you appear vain to be willing to spend money on making such things before an audience ever suggests they want it. As much as I would love a plush toy of The Cat in “James – Journey of Existence,” I’m probably the only one who does.

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